Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Mockingbird Hill Cottage

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Wonderful Gifts from Bloggers, Pt. 1

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I am so grateful for the friends I have met through blogging. You are all so dear to me. I hope you know that. Lately, wonderful surprises have been showing up in my mailbox and on my doorstep. I’d like to share some of them with you over the next few posts.

Look up at my header. Do you see the McCoy bird planter on the left? I have two of them in turquoise, and a smaller one in white.  I love them dearly. They may be my favorite pieces in my collection.

Yesterday I received a package from my friend Kim of Flowers and Art. Kim is enormously talented and among her talents are miniatures and dollhouses.  Imagine my surprised delight when I saw this:
Oh. my. goodness.
This chair is sitting on the dollhouse porch. Let me show you the scale:
Sorry, President Lincoln. I didn’t mean to turn you upside down! I’m delighted, amazed and so grateful that Kim took the time to make this priceless miniature. She also sent me this ornament that she created:
She used a Santa light cover, then created the giant snowball and the little snowballs in his lap and then painted his coat and cap in the perfect shade of turquoise! My favorite color. Thank you, Kim. I am blown away by your creations.
Remember my post about my love for the scent of pine? My friend Suzanne of Privet and Holly said she wanted to send me something that she thought I would like. It arrived yesterday.

Let me tell you, the scent coming from this votive is incredible. My husband said it smells better than the Frazier Fir sitting in our den! Suzanne has a friend who’s sister designed this scent for Thymes. I feel my shoulders drop just from the unlit scent of the votive. Imagine what it will be like when it’s lit! Thank you, Suzanne.

A blessing beyond measure – the warmth of friendship. More in the next post.

Reindeer and an Angel

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Do you like my vintage reindeer? I would say they were manufactured in the 50’s – 60’s. They remind me of my childhood. The awful truth: I bought these last Christmas to give to someone who was having a holiday party. I didn’t end up attending said party; I think I was under the weather. I discovered them in my craft closet this year. Now they’re mine.

It’s very cold here in our neck of the woods. But no snow. I watch the weather and see snow falling everywhere else. My goodness, Europe was really getting hit over the weekend. Airports were closed, train travel stopped. Here? Nothing. We may have ‘snow showers’ on Christmas. Translated: no accumulation. I know I will be up to my neck in snow later this winter, so I shouldn’t complain. However, it would be nice to have some white stuff on the ground for Christmas.

We moved out to the East Coast 9 years ago. Don is a Southern California boy and I had lived in San Diego for 8 years. We were ready for a white Christmas. Boy, did we get one. There was a blizzard that day. Snow, snow and more snow. It went on all day. I remember trying to walk through waist-high drifts to our vacationing neighbors’ house to feed their dogs and let them outside. It was a magical adventure. We were living in a tiny rented cottage and we felt warm and cozy while all that snow whirled and twirled through the air. I still love that feeling.

That was the Christmas I realized that because of a moving day glitch, all our boxes of Christmas ornaments had been put in an not-very-accessible storage facility and not in the cottage where they belonged. We had nothing. We had to run out and buy some very inexpensive ornaments from the local drug store. And that’s where this tree topper comes in. We had a beautiful glass tree topper that was, regrettably, in those darn boxes. I found this tin angel in a local shop. Her folk-art look was charming and I thought she would do nicely until we were reunited with our “in storage” ornaments. Well, we weren’t reunited with them until four years later when we moved to MHC. As we unpacked them all that first year here, we admired our glass tree topper once again.  We placed it on top of the tree. Pretty…but not our angel. The angel won out. And she has every Christmas since.

What Is It With Me & Glue Guns?

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Before I launch into my glue gun adventure, let me say that I do not plan on receiving a new camera for Christmas as some of you have suggested. Oh no. We are on a tight budget here and our gift exchange will be meaningful but far from opulent. I am going to have to save my pennies for a new camera and that might take quite a while. Meanwhile, I’ll keep researching and dreaming. And visualizing.

Now, on to the glue gun problem. I bought a glue gun earlier this year at Michael’s. I brought it home and plugged it in. Nothing. No heat, no anything. It was very inexpensive, so though I was frustrated, I wasn’t out much money. The other day I got the idea in my head to make something, inspired by this post. I didn’t want to decorate the stairway the way I had in the past, with faux pine garlands, etc. It just seemed to be too much for this particular Christmas. I thought maybe a wreath would look nice. The ever-popular coffee filter wreath.

Off I went to Michael’s to buy a wreath form and a glue gun. This time I went with a more expensive model, thinking that my cheapness with the previous purchase might have given me what I deserved. I could hear “You get what you pay for” ringing in my ears. I set up the craft table, armed with a stack of coffee filters, glue gun, and wreath form. For a bit, all was well. Glue was melting, filters were being made into a wreath. Then… a problem. The trigger would no longer push the glue stick further into the gun. I had to manually push it, and then it would pop back out. No hot glue. I found myself trying to hold the filter in one hand while trying to manually push the glue into the nozzle with my finger, and when that didn’t work – a stick. Since I don’t have 3 hands, this quickly became hopeless.

Sick of the whole thing, I turned to my trusty Quick Grip glue and proceeded to glue many, many, many filters to the wreath form. Then I spent the next 3 hours peeling glue from my fingers.

I think the universe is telling me I am not supposed to work with a glue gun. Ever. Between the glue on my fingers with this project and kneading biscuit dough later in the evening, the theme for the day was Messy Fingers.

Here’s the finished project:

I like it. I know this project has been everywhere in blogland and I’m rather late to the party. However, better late than never.

So, here’s my question. Am I the only one who has a problem with glue guns? Please tell me it’s not just me. Have any of you glue gun stories to tell?

Lambs Like to Party

Lambs Like to Party

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